“Oh, were I rather a trout in the stream!” thought Jalomitza; and in a moment she became a trout, but the butterfly turned into a net, caught her, and lifted her up into the air, till she was like to die.
“I would I were a lizard!” thought the poor maid as she lay dying in the net; and lo! in the twinkling of an eye she was gliding as quick as thought among the grass and flowers, and fancying she was hidden beneath every stone and leaf. But from under the nearest stone a snake crawled forth, and held her spell-bound beneath his dreadful eyes, so that she could not move. They tarried a long while thus, and the little lizard’s heart beat to bursting against her sides.
“Would I had become a nun! I should have been safe in the cloister!” she thought; and in a moment the lofty dome of a church rose above her head, she saw tapers burning, and heard the voices of many hundreds of nuns re-echoing in a mighty wave of song. Jalomitza knelt, in the guise of a nun, before the picture of one of the saints; her heart was still throbbing with fear, and she rejoiced to think that she was hidden in this sanctuary. She raised her eyes in thanksgiving to the picture above her—and behold! Bucur’s eyes were gazing at her from out its face, and cast such a spell upon her that she could not quit the spot, even when the church grew empty. Night fell; the eyes began to shine and glitter, and Jalomitza’s tears fell ceaselessly down on the stones where she knelt.
“Ah me!” she cried, “even in this holy place I find no rest from thee! Would I were a cloud!” As she spoke the vaulted roof above her changed to the blue vault of heaven, and she was floating as a cloud through its boundless heights. But her persecutor turned into the wind, and hunted her from south to north, and from east to west, over the whole earth.
“I had better have been a grain of sand,” said the little cloud to itself at last. Then it sank to earth, and fell, in the form of a tiny grain of golden sand, into the Rîul Doamnei. But Bucur became a peasant, wading with naked feet in the river to seek for gold, and he fished up the little grain of sand out of the depths. It slipped hastily through his fingers, and turned into a doe, that fled away toward the woodland thickets. But before the doe could reach the shelter of the forest, Bucur became an eagle, shot down upon her from above, and once more bore her off in his talons toward his eyrie in the Bucegi Mountain. Hardly had he loosed his grasp of her before she fell, as a dewdrop, into the cup of a gentian blossom. But he became a sunbeam, and glanced down upon her to drink her up. Then at last, in the shape of a wild goat, she dashed, without knowing whither she went, straight towards his cave. Laughing, he pursued her in the guise of a hunter, and murmured: “I have thee now.” She ran into the cave, ever deeper and deeper, and on a sudden perceived that all the stones round about were beautiful maidens, from whose eyes tears dropped unceasingly down.
“Oh, flee, flee from hence!” a hundred voices called to her. “Thou unhappy maid! If once he kisses thee, thou wilt turn to stone like us!”
At that moment an arrow flew through the whole length of the cave, and struck the little goat as she fled. In deadly anguish she cried: “Oh, would I were a stream! then I could flow away from him.” Instantly she felt herself rushing out of the cave as a foaming mountain torrent; the enchanter uttered a terrible curse, turned into rock, and caught in his arms the little stream, that still kept on ever escaping him. Just then Coman reached the cave, and recognising his Jalomitza by her voice, as she uttered a heartrending cry of “Coman, Coman!” he gathered up all his remaining strength, and hurled his flute against the rock, in the outlines of which he could discern Bucur’s cruel grin. And now the spell was broken. Bucur could no more change his shape again than Jalomitza hers, and so she flows on to this day, away over his stony, immovable arms. But Coman built a little church before the cave, and became a monk, dwelling there in holiness, and gazing upon his fair beloved, unto his life’s end.